So, it's some form cancer. The GP at the student clinic told me she thought it was probably lymphoma, which was good news because lymphoma responds well to chemo and radiation therapies. She sent me over to a surgeon at the hospital along with the urging to ask Shayne to leave work and come with me to the appointment. He did.
We sat in the surgeon's office and looked in depth at the results of the CT scans. This thing...it's huge. So much bigger than what I would even think could fit in my body. It goes from my uterus to my liver and fills up almost one whole side of my abdominal cavity and it pushes my organs around to make room for itself. The bright side is, I'm probably not as fat as I thought I was.
The surgeon told me that the removal of the tumor should be fairly easy, and he felt there was a 90% chance I won't need chemo afterward. He wasn't all that concerned with a biopsy or a detailed diagnosis of what sort of tumor this is. His first priority is to just get it out, then worry about doing an autopsy on it. Shayne and I found this hopeful, but I feel a sense of doubt. The next doctor might tell us something different again.
Since part of the tumor is dangerously close to my baby factory components, the surgeon referred me to a gynecological surgeon in Salt Lake. I have an appointment in a couple of weeks to talk to her and plan for the surgery. I guess I'm assuming the obgyn can circumnavigate my other organs with equal skill.
I'm already planning the books and music I will bring with me to the hospital, remembering what C.S. Lewis wrote about how he learned to enjoy the time he spent recovering from various illnesses and injuries because it gave him an opportunity to read as much as he wanted. I intend to to the same. During the worst of it, I won't even have to take potty breaks. This will be way better than the time I spent in the hospital when I was four, because now I can read whatever I want. I probably want to avoid funny books, as the abdominal incision will make laughter painful, but...
I guess I'll see what happens. Cross that bridge when I come to it, wot.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Thursday, August 23, 2012
In Which I Attempt (And Fail) To Avoid Flashing My Undies At The CT Scan Technician
Today marks the date of my first ultrasound, which was performed in an attempt to diagnose a weird, owie thing in my tummy that I have lovingly named, "My Tumor." It was my first serious round of testing where I didn't have my mother present, and where I didn't have health insurance. I held out a long time for the insurance, but it turned out we couldn't afford the premiums, so that's cool. Then I tried to hold out for Obamacare, but that didn't work out either because it freaking HURTS. So.
It's incredibly awkward. The girls at the front desk for IHC's radiology department are polite, but their mannerism suggests that they weren't expecting you and they're frankly weirded out to see you there. I tried to give everybody my application for financial aid (in which I enclosed our current tax returns including all schedules, our last two pay stubs for both of us, W-2 forms from our taxes for all our jobs, my mother's maiden name, a sperm sample, and the zygote of our firstborn child) which embarrassed them all until one of the office personnel kindly showed me which office to take the app to.
The ultrasound was probably routine, if you're used to that sort of thing. But my mind kept playing tricks on me. The tech would be examining, like, my gallbladder, and I kept thinking I was seeing the form of a curled-up kidney bean of a fetus in the grainy, staticky images on the screen. I'm probably just used to searching the scan my friend shows me and straining to find anything vaguely human in the dense impossibility of snowstorm. Maybe I can't shut that off. When the tech finally did scan my uterus, I was relieved to find it comfortingly empty. Although, the tech did ask me if I had a uterus -- a valid question, I realized, but it seemed strange. She could see my whole tummy. Being born without a uterus is rare, and and I would most likely have a scar if it had been removed. What would it do, turn inside out and run away?
Dunno. When she scanned My Tumor, I caught sight of a vaguely treelike form, like a placenta, heavily veined and yet strangely amorphous in the ultrasound screen. It was inside me, feeding off my blood.
She called my doctor and made a report. I heard discomfiting bits of conversation like, "She has a mass in her abdomen that's over thirty centimeters. I couldn't adequately measure it...yeah. I think she needs a CT scan. Just to see what this is." So the doc ordered a CT scan, and they managed to squeeze me in for a few hours later, which was wonderfully convenient. I went home and spent the next several hours watching the clock like a stalking cat, drinking my contrast chemicals at correct intervals, willing myself to become the responsible adult I know I should be, right at this moment.
I got the chemicals all drunk at the appropriate times, but I showed up for my CT without the paperwork I had taken home to fill out. Luckily, that was an easy fix. I just filled out new paperwork like magic. At one point, one of the front desk girls came up to me and stated, "You don't have diabetes." then added as an afterthought, "Correct?" I experienced a variety of emotions in that moment. First, I was all like, "Great! Thanks! I didn't realize anybody was testing me for it, but..." then, "Wait, what?" What I actually said to her was, "I have not been diagnosed with diabetes, nor do I believe I have diabetes." It must have sounded strange because the girl dragged out a shaky, uncertain smile. "Perfect!" She exclaimed.
A tech emerged from the bowels of the building and called me back ("Cyndi?" Always, with the Cyndi.) She was nice. But as were walking into the scan room, she asked me my weight. Rather than protesting that I'd already been asked for my weight, like, three times since that morning, I revealed the rather substantial number (I've gained about fifty pounds since we came to Logan). She gasped, balked, and led me to a different room, I assume one with a sturdier platform to hold my ponderous weight. I needed to remove anything metal, including my underwire bra and metal-buttoned jeans. That was expected. I worried about having to remove my undies and was relieved that I could keep them on, but this presented a new challenge. Would it have been worse to flash the tech and radiologist my bum, or my cheerful, brightly striped undies? I held the back of my gown closed by hand.
The next step was to inject more contrast chemicals via IV. The chemicals I drank would cause my digestive system to light up one color, and the IV chemicals would cause my circulatory system to light up another color. Excellent. I lay down on the platform with only a slight pang of fear that I would cause it to collapse and splinter into high-tech kindling. The technician began the process of finding and piercing my vein, a process with which I have familiarized myself via repeated blood donations. No big. The tech struggled to find the vein and wiggled that needle. I grimaced, but I'm tough. Then suddenly, blood welled up around the needled and streamed down the side of my arm, down the CT platform, and all over the floor. I should have thought of a bloodletting joke, but I didn't. Drat. It wasn't quite epic enough to be like a murder scene, but it was still pretty awesome. The tech apologized profusely and I was all like, "Are you kidding? It's just a little blood. I've had worse." That last bit was, of course, quoting Monty Python. Such are the jokes I come up with while wearing a hospital gown.
Then they sent me through the spinning portal, which I'm convinced is either a stargate or a door to Narnia. It's really a cool machine. I reflect on how most people who don't develop a qualifying condition don't get to see one or know what it's like. It's like, spinning backwards into the void. I lay there in the device and watched mirrored components inside it whirring, flashing, like tiny robots observing me and bustling about.
After a time, the tech came back and injected me with iodine, which, as she warned me, would produce a warm sensation, a metallic taste, and a feeling like I've peed my pants, but I really haven't. Boy, did I appreciate that warning. I told her so, too. It was a perfect description of the strange sensation I got. For a moment, I worried that I might throw up all over this beautiful machine, but I willed myself to be still and let the nausea pass. It did. I told myself to buck up and remember that if this all turns out to be cancer, this wave of nausea will feel like a vacation very, very soon.
On my way back into the bathroom to dress myself, I held the gown closed again, until I reached out to take hold of the door handle. I felt the fabric billow out behind me, backside to the tech and the radiologist. Awesome.
The tech told me to wait in the lobby for about twenty minutes while the radiologist read the resulting scans. If I didn't hear anything in twenty minutes, she told me, I should go ask. Sometimes the radiologist can...forget. (Incidentally, that was the second time I'd heard a hospital employee tactfully tell me that the radiologist basically has no fucks left to give, and I have to light a fire under him to get him to help me.) I waited for about thirty minutes of soap opera (Days Of Our Lives. I'm not really a fan.) before returning to the desk, where the polite girls assumed the posture and expressions that indicated they felt they were talking to someone very strange, very unfortunate, and very stupid. What did I need, exactly? Some sort of update? What were the results of...what? I'm used to that. Walmart customers give me that all the time. It neither bothers me nor hurts my feelings. But this situation was very different from me, standing there with a dazed expression, trying to remember where Walmart keeps the toothpicks. Like, it's OK if you think I'm stupid. It's OK if you think I'm socially incompetent, or that I'm three gallons of crazy in a two-gallon bucket (I am.) But I came in here to get a CT scan done. What else would I be asking about?
I didn't say that. I embarrassedly tried to explain what I was still doing there, when the results were already being sent to my doc anyway. The girls politely promised to "keep an eye out for" the radiologist. I milled around another couple of minutes and then left. I hadn't eaten anything since the night before due to doctor's instructions, and my cheerfulness was coming to an end with grim alacrity. I went to Wok On Wheels and got something to eat, because really, what does it matter? I've mostly managed to convince myself of -- and accept -- the idea that this is terminal cancer that has been exacerbated by my foolish decision to delay treatment in hopes of obtaining health insurance. Any result short of "Let's start chemotherapy!" or "Go ahead and make your final arrangements" would be welcome.
In the end, I don't know. I'll talk to the doc tomorrow, and hopefully she will know more. I have an idea that a biopsy is coming. If I don't qualify for the financial aid through IHC (after all, Conservice offers health insurance. Why didn't Shayne just drop out of school and buy it?) I'll apply for Obama's pre-existing condition insurance. And if not...
The End.
P.S. I bet the therapists in the next life are a lot more effective, and I bet they don't even charge any money. And I could kick it with my dead pets. They don't judge me for being crazy.
Listening to this:
It's incredibly awkward. The girls at the front desk for IHC's radiology department are polite, but their mannerism suggests that they weren't expecting you and they're frankly weirded out to see you there. I tried to give everybody my application for financial aid (in which I enclosed our current tax returns including all schedules, our last two pay stubs for both of us, W-2 forms from our taxes for all our jobs, my mother's maiden name, a sperm sample, and the zygote of our firstborn child) which embarrassed them all until one of the office personnel kindly showed me which office to take the app to.
The ultrasound was probably routine, if you're used to that sort of thing. But my mind kept playing tricks on me. The tech would be examining, like, my gallbladder, and I kept thinking I was seeing the form of a curled-up kidney bean of a fetus in the grainy, staticky images on the screen. I'm probably just used to searching the scan my friend shows me and straining to find anything vaguely human in the dense impossibility of snowstorm. Maybe I can't shut that off. When the tech finally did scan my uterus, I was relieved to find it comfortingly empty. Although, the tech did ask me if I had a uterus -- a valid question, I realized, but it seemed strange. She could see my whole tummy. Being born without a uterus is rare, and and I would most likely have a scar if it had been removed. What would it do, turn inside out and run away?
Dunno. When she scanned My Tumor, I caught sight of a vaguely treelike form, like a placenta, heavily veined and yet strangely amorphous in the ultrasound screen. It was inside me, feeding off my blood.
She called my doctor and made a report. I heard discomfiting bits of conversation like, "She has a mass in her abdomen that's over thirty centimeters. I couldn't adequately measure it...yeah. I think she needs a CT scan. Just to see what this is." So the doc ordered a CT scan, and they managed to squeeze me in for a few hours later, which was wonderfully convenient. I went home and spent the next several hours watching the clock like a stalking cat, drinking my contrast chemicals at correct intervals, willing myself to become the responsible adult I know I should be, right at this moment.
I got the chemicals all drunk at the appropriate times, but I showed up for my CT without the paperwork I had taken home to fill out. Luckily, that was an easy fix. I just filled out new paperwork like magic. At one point, one of the front desk girls came up to me and stated, "You don't have diabetes." then added as an afterthought, "Correct?" I experienced a variety of emotions in that moment. First, I was all like, "Great! Thanks! I didn't realize anybody was testing me for it, but..." then, "Wait, what?" What I actually said to her was, "I have not been diagnosed with diabetes, nor do I believe I have diabetes." It must have sounded strange because the girl dragged out a shaky, uncertain smile. "Perfect!" She exclaimed.
A tech emerged from the bowels of the building and called me back ("Cyndi?" Always, with the Cyndi.) She was nice. But as were walking into the scan room, she asked me my weight. Rather than protesting that I'd already been asked for my weight, like, three times since that morning, I revealed the rather substantial number (I've gained about fifty pounds since we came to Logan). She gasped, balked, and led me to a different room, I assume one with a sturdier platform to hold my ponderous weight. I needed to remove anything metal, including my underwire bra and metal-buttoned jeans. That was expected. I worried about having to remove my undies and was relieved that I could keep them on, but this presented a new challenge. Would it have been worse to flash the tech and radiologist my bum, or my cheerful, brightly striped undies? I held the back of my gown closed by hand.
The next step was to inject more contrast chemicals via IV. The chemicals I drank would cause my digestive system to light up one color, and the IV chemicals would cause my circulatory system to light up another color. Excellent. I lay down on the platform with only a slight pang of fear that I would cause it to collapse and splinter into high-tech kindling. The technician began the process of finding and piercing my vein, a process with which I have familiarized myself via repeated blood donations. No big. The tech struggled to find the vein and wiggled that needle. I grimaced, but I'm tough. Then suddenly, blood welled up around the needled and streamed down the side of my arm, down the CT platform, and all over the floor. I should have thought of a bloodletting joke, but I didn't. Drat. It wasn't quite epic enough to be like a murder scene, but it was still pretty awesome. The tech apologized profusely and I was all like, "Are you kidding? It's just a little blood. I've had worse." That last bit was, of course, quoting Monty Python. Such are the jokes I come up with while wearing a hospital gown.
Then they sent me through the spinning portal, which I'm convinced is either a stargate or a door to Narnia. It's really a cool machine. I reflect on how most people who don't develop a qualifying condition don't get to see one or know what it's like. It's like, spinning backwards into the void. I lay there in the device and watched mirrored components inside it whirring, flashing, like tiny robots observing me and bustling about.
After a time, the tech came back and injected me with iodine, which, as she warned me, would produce a warm sensation, a metallic taste, and a feeling like I've peed my pants, but I really haven't. Boy, did I appreciate that warning. I told her so, too. It was a perfect description of the strange sensation I got. For a moment, I worried that I might throw up all over this beautiful machine, but I willed myself to be still and let the nausea pass. It did. I told myself to buck up and remember that if this all turns out to be cancer, this wave of nausea will feel like a vacation very, very soon.
On my way back into the bathroom to dress myself, I held the gown closed again, until I reached out to take hold of the door handle. I felt the fabric billow out behind me, backside to the tech and the radiologist. Awesome.
The tech told me to wait in the lobby for about twenty minutes while the radiologist read the resulting scans. If I didn't hear anything in twenty minutes, she told me, I should go ask. Sometimes the radiologist can...forget. (Incidentally, that was the second time I'd heard a hospital employee tactfully tell me that the radiologist basically has no fucks left to give, and I have to light a fire under him to get him to help me.) I waited for about thirty minutes of soap opera (Days Of Our Lives. I'm not really a fan.) before returning to the desk, where the polite girls assumed the posture and expressions that indicated they felt they were talking to someone very strange, very unfortunate, and very stupid. What did I need, exactly? Some sort of update? What were the results of...what? I'm used to that. Walmart customers give me that all the time. It neither bothers me nor hurts my feelings. But this situation was very different from me, standing there with a dazed expression, trying to remember where Walmart keeps the toothpicks. Like, it's OK if you think I'm stupid. It's OK if you think I'm socially incompetent, or that I'm three gallons of crazy in a two-gallon bucket (I am.) But I came in here to get a CT scan done. What else would I be asking about?
I didn't say that. I embarrassedly tried to explain what I was still doing there, when the results were already being sent to my doc anyway. The girls politely promised to "keep an eye out for" the radiologist. I milled around another couple of minutes and then left. I hadn't eaten anything since the night before due to doctor's instructions, and my cheerfulness was coming to an end with grim alacrity. I went to Wok On Wheels and got something to eat, because really, what does it matter? I've mostly managed to convince myself of -- and accept -- the idea that this is terminal cancer that has been exacerbated by my foolish decision to delay treatment in hopes of obtaining health insurance. Any result short of "Let's start chemotherapy!" or "Go ahead and make your final arrangements" would be welcome.
In the end, I don't know. I'll talk to the doc tomorrow, and hopefully she will know more. I have an idea that a biopsy is coming. If I don't qualify for the financial aid through IHC (after all, Conservice offers health insurance. Why didn't Shayne just drop out of school and buy it?) I'll apply for Obama's pre-existing condition insurance. And if not...
The End.
P.S. I bet the therapists in the next life are a lot more effective, and I bet they don't even charge any money. And I could kick it with my dead pets. They don't judge me for being crazy.
Listening to this:
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